The False Sense of Spoons
Or, how I managed to exhaust myself before I started pouring coffee.
We know our bodies. We think we know better. Sometimes we do.
But then there are those moments when we wake up feeling that little spark of possibility and fail to recognize it for what it is: a false sense of spoons.
And sometimes we pay the price.
Often, we beat ourselves up for falling short of our own unrealistic expectations.
The old expression, “You’ll never know if you don’t try,” rather spectacularly misses the point when it comes to living with a life-limiting, complex chronic condition.
Oh, we KNOW what happens when we try. We’ve funded that experiment with borrowed spoons, accrued interest, and compounded exhaustion all our lives. Repeatedly. The results have been peer-reviewed by our nervous systems, and yet, occasionally, we still volunteer to be in the next control group. (Small pun intended.)
And society, particularly social media, would STILL have us pushing our bodies, testing our limits, challenging our boundaries, because there’s always another shiny, unreachable carrot dangling at the end of the next AI reel.
As IF reality wasn’t setting the bar high enough. Now we have to compare ourselves to AI imaginations.
You got this! No excuses! Push through!
Yeah. About that.
The Great Bedrotting Offense
And OMGosh, have you heard the term bedrotting?
Talk about the most ableist nugget of judgment to float down the social media sewer.
Apparently, they’ve taken SELF-CARE and stamped it with an image of worthlessness, as though resting were evidence of some personal failure.
And you KNOW women get an extra helping of that judgment.
Men get to call it “downtime,” “recharging their batteries,” or “strategic recovery.” They make it sound corporate. Put it on a calendar, and suddenly it’s an executive wellness initiative.
Women? We’re rotting.
Because, of course, we’re supposed to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, never, NEVER let you forget you’re a man.
Fuck off, Enjoli.
The ’70s did a number on our collective understanding of what a woman is supposed to accomplish before she’s allowed to sit the hell down.
And some of us are still trying to unlearn it.
The Lazy Lie
It’s astonishing how often women describe themselves as lazy.
We say it. We feel it. We believe it.
We’ve been conditioned from a young age to measure our worth by our usefulness. A clean house. A prepared meal. A productive day. Everyone else’s needs anticipated and met, preferably before anyone has to ask.
And if there’s time left over? Perhaps we can earn ourselves a little rest.
But rest isn’t a reward for productivity. It’s a biological necessity.
And having a chronic condition doesn’t somehow obligate us to compensate for our limitations by working twice as hard on the days we feel halfway decent.
We’re not lazy because we have limits.
We’re human.
Apparently, I Still Haven’t Learned
You would think that by my 60s, I’d have a better grasp on reality.
And yet…
This morning, I woke up feeling like I had spoons.
Not an abundance, mind you. But enough.
Enough to shower before starting breakfast prep.
And once I’d accomplished that, my brain piped up with its next brilliant suggestion:
Well, you’ve got time. Why not dry your hair?
Mind you, I NEVER DRY MY HAIR.
But sure! Why not?
And then the dogs wanted out.
I can do that before heading downstairs to the kitchen.
Look at me! Getting things done!
By the time I’d made it downstairs to pick up Rosie and finally reached the kitchen, I was a tachy dumpster fire.
I’d somehow managed to turn three toxic little bursts of optimism into a triathlon my body had absolutely no intention of funding.
All before I’d poured the first cup of coffee.
So, Where Does That Leave Us?
Social media has an armband it will sell you (with a subscription, naturally) that claims it will ALERT you when you’re out of SPOONS.
I think there’s a special place in HELL for startups that want to profit from selling snake oil to the chronically ill.
The sad truth is that sometimes it’s just a shit show.
Some days we seem to gauge it right. Others, we miscalculate. And sometimes there’s no calculation that could have prepared us, because it’s all more fluid than we’d like to believe.
Our bodies change the rules halfway through, and the carefully considered plan we made ten minutes ago is already obsolete.
Each time, all we can do is come back.
To this moment.
This breath. (Or breathless, if we’re currently sitting out a flare.)
To the understanding that we don’t have to justify our rest, earn our recovery, or turn every fleeting moment of capacity into another opportunity to be productive.
We can revise the plan. Lower the expectations. Leave something undone.
And perhaps, most importantly, extend ourselves the same grace we’d readily offer someone else.
Because knowing our bodies doesn’t mean we’ll always get the math right.
It means learning to listen without turning every miscalculation into a moral indictment.
And as for Enjoli?
My MCAS has a message for you:
Turns out I was never the problem. Your expectations were toxic. And so was your fucking perfume.
